


Not Going To Be Your Cyrano de Bergerac

by kinetikatrue



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:05:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>55. Frank/Gerard - One of them is a tattoo artist. Gerard is still needle-phobic. How the hell does this work?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Going To Be Your Cyrano de Bergerac

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyfoxxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfoxxx/gifts).



> To my prompter: I hope that this is not too entirely not what you wanted out of this; I got this concept stuck in my head the minute I saw the prompt and haven't been able to shake it since (though it took me forever to figure out how to mostly begin to pull it off correctly). Thanks go to E for helping me figure out how to deal with this when it wanted to be all the thousands of words and to S for making me defend my characterization. [](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/profile)[**airgiodslv**](http://airgiodslv.livejournal.com/) rocks for holding this shindig again and letting me continue writing in peace when I kept on trucking right past the deadline. And [](http://spritesam.livejournal.com/profile)[**spritesam**](http://spritesam.livejournal.com/) deserves a shout-out, since I could not have done this at all without [her awesome catalogue of Frank's tattoos](http://spritesam.livejournal.com/13409.html)!

Gerard’s in the middle of a verse, in the middle of a fucking word, even, when the arm catches his attention. It's just a flash, there for a moment and then gone, swallowed up by the crowd of kids directly in front the stage. And that normally just registers as one big writhing mass of sweaty flesh through Gerard's half-drunk state and the shitty-ass club lighting.

He nearly stutters to a vocal halt while the rest of his band plays on, but instinct saves him, keeps him spitting out lyrics in the rote mumble-growl that's got him through shows drunker than he is tonight - and the rest of him pretty much falls into autopiloted line. He wouldn't exactly call what he does up on stage a _routine_ , not really, but there're, like, highlights, artistic flourishes, things the audience has learned to expect - and those have muscle memory behind them. It's enough to get him through, anyway. Or at least it had better be. His brain has gone completely over to trying to catch another glimpse of that arm.

The tattoo on it's what'd really caught his attention, made him think it would maybe be worth seeing it as part of a distinct, unique human being. But, then, well, it's maybe part of a person who's possibly moshing to one of Gerard's songs and rocking one of his designs.

He's not certain; he can't be, not fucking properly. Not at this distance and in this lighting. It could be somebody else's Lady of Sorrows. It's not exactly an uncommon tattoo subject in hella-Catholic North Jersey. But it could be his. And that would make it a big one, one of the ones that get an entire frame dedicated to them on the wall of the shop. And Gerard doesn't think he's ever seen one of those attached to an actual person before.

At least not outside of the website gallery Mikey has going.

The arm doesn't reappear the entire rest of the show, at least not that Gerard can see - and he's watching pretty fucking carefully. He doesn't know whether its owner left the show entirely or left the pit or just quit flailing around quite so much. And he kinda wants to know, is the thing.

Yeah, Gerard would be sad if it turned out that the kid with the arm tat didn't dig his music so much, despite liking Gerard's art enough to wear it around for the rest of his life (though it could be a her - Gerard would not mind that _at all_ ). But Gerard would be the first to admit that he's a better artist than he is a musician.

It's the art that pays the bills, after all.

He's not half-bad at the music thing, though - and he'd like to think that the kid stuck around. That that arm flail was just a one-off and the body it was attached to hunkered down and stuck it out in the pit for the rest of the show. Or, maybe, if the kid isn't such a kid, eventually went and got some water and hung out a bit further back for the rest of the show. Maybe did a bit of pogoing, got a beer, yelled along with the choruses. Gerard could dig that.

If, y'know, it turned out to be his fucking design and not some other artist's. Hell, even if it didn't.

He does his best to keep on keeping a lookout for that arm, and for the most part does pretty fucking well at it, but just before the end of the show he gets distracted. Because Bert turns up with a megaphone, drunk and screaming incoherent shit, an endless stream of slurred, "Cunt!" and "Pussy!".

Gerard completely fails at being suave or witty or even more than a little fucking coherent right back at him. Later, he thinks he remembers yelling, "Get the fuck out of here, dickbag."

But he isn't really sure if that's what he actually said or that he said anything at all. He might have just stood up there, mouth open, staring out at Bert while security dragged him away. He's bad at handling things with Bert. He does get that.

Security does drag Bert out, though - and a couple songs after that, their set wraps up. They do an off-the-cuff encore and, after that, it's over for another weekend. The other guys start packing away their gear: Ray bags his guitar and puts the case back on his amp; James puts his keyboards in their covers - and Gerard just stands there with his tambourine and feather boa, half-listening to the guys talking around him and staring out at the audience, looking for the Lady tat kid.

He completely fails to see him some more.

He stands there for so long that eventually Ray comes up to Gerard and starts breaking down his microphone, which isn't that unusual, since the rest of the band isn't always willing to trust Gerard with any equipment more complicated than the tambourine.

And Gerard can't exactly argue with that.

He's not incompetent, not exactly. It's just . . . he sometimes gets distracted. Like about the Lady tat kid. If he'd tried to strip down his own mic tonight, he maybe would have ended up beheading it or something. And while a mic isn't nearly in the same category, cost-wise, as, say, an entire new drum kit or a guitar, none of them actually wants to have to budget for new equipment if it isn't absolutely necessary.

Eventually it stops being worth it to stand there staring - he doesn't even know why, not properly, though it's possible his subconscious has decided that if he returns to where he was standing when he first saw the kid that that will magically make the kid appear, too - and starts edging into actually-weird-even-for-him territory. So Gerard goes and puts his tambourine in its bag and takes it out to the van (which already contains all the rest of the band's stuff and has been deserted by the rest of the guys) - and then heads back into the club to find Mikey, though he probably won't still be leaning against the wall he spent the show holding up. Inside, Gerard wanders and kids come up to him, offering smiles and back-slaps that knock him askew. And asking for pictures and hugs.

Gerard smiles and hugs and poses and keeps his balance as best he can - and keeps looking for Mikey throughout it all. And he likes it, he does - likes knowing that he matters to people outside Mikey and the band, that he maybe makes a difference in their lives, but his heart's not really in it, not when the Lady tat kid isn't one of the kids he runs into.

Then, suddenly, Mikey comes into view between a couple of clumps of kids, drinking beer out of a solo cup and talking to some guy Gerard doesn't think he's ever seen before. A hot, tattooed guy in a sweated-through t-shirt and tight jeans.

Mikey's possibly flirting with him, though he's keeping it pretty low-key if he is. Really, though, Gerard does not want to know for-fucking-sure. He hasn't asked about Alicia or Pete, won't ask unless Mikey starts seriously glowing or drooping. So even if this guy could maybe be Gerard's Lady tat person and also possibly Gerard's type (which Gerard is not saying anything about one way or the other), he's just going to leave it be, just go over to the bar and have another beer and torture himself by looking over every few minutes.

He's got to walk past Mikey and the hot tattooed guy to get there, though. Which is fucking lame, in Gerard's opinion, since it means that more opportunities for Mikey to end up maybe-flirting in front of him. But he'll do it, if it means he gets to the beer. Or at least he'll come mighty close.

Hiding behind a screen of scene kids is totally a valid life choice in Gerard's opinion.

He's about halfway to the bar when he hears Mikey's mumble and then what must hot tattooed guy replying, saying, " - I just need something to put a cap on it."

Gerard freezes, listens to Mikey say, "Put a cap in it, maybe?"

And hot tattooed guy reply, "Nah, maybe something more like a knife. More, like, visceral."

Mikey comes back at him with, "You just want another excuse to get a tattoo of something bleeding," which isn't that suggestive, maybe.

But then hot tattooed guy says, totally flirtatiously, "Well, the drops of blood on the last one you did for me _were_ fucking badass."

And that's about all the eavesdropping on his brother flirting Gerard can take. He is _such_ a fucking creeper loser, jesus fuck. And he really needs some vodka, fucking stat.

***

He doesn't actually get to ask Mikey about the Lady tat until Sunday afternoon, when the two of them are curled up together on Gerard's couch, watching a really terrible werewolf movie which is totally worth it for the cheesy special effects - and treating their hangovers with extra-strong coffee.

Gerard has a sketch pad out, doodling things that could maybe, someday, become designs for the shop - and Mikey's hunched over his laptop, transferring images from a digital storage card to the shop's website's gallery directory, a process which leaves him pushing his glasses up his nose every few minutes and cursing CuteFTP and Gerard's spotty internet.

Gerard mostly splits his attention between his sketch pad and the television screen, but occasionally he looks over to see how Mikey's doing with the uploads. He doesn't have to ever ask, really, just sketch a glance at the screen and look away again - and then one time one of the pictures is of the Lady tat in sharp focus on someone's forearm.

Gerard perks up a bit at that, says, nearly cheerfully, "It really could have been."

Mikey only half looks up, but he does ask, "What?" Because he's an awesome little brother who pays attention like that.

And Gerard explains, trying for casual (and probably failing pretty miserably at achieving it; that would be how it usually goes), "There was a kid in the crowd at the show, had a Lady tat; it could have been one of yours."

And Mikey says, like the entire subject is totally old news, "Yeah, Frank was there." He adds, even more off-handedly, "He usually is. And he's only a year younger than me."

Gerard says, reflexively, "You're always going to be my kid brother."

And Mikey half-smiles and gives the ritual reply, "And you've always been my big brother," but he's already gone back to trying to make Gerard's internet connection his bitch and continuing the conversation is clearly not his priority.

Gerard doesn't know entirely what else he would have said, anyway, because Mikey's mentioned Frank to him before, though they've never met, and Frank's always seemed like a cool guy from what Mikey's said. But he and Mikey talk about the tattoo business as little as possible, since Gerard loves the finished product but hates thinking about the process and most of the time he doesn't feel right claiming the art as his own.

(Mikey says it belongs to both of them, that he'd never have come up with the designs Gerard does, that he wouldn't have ended up in the tattooing business in the first place if Gerard hadn't filled sketch pad after sketch pad with designs he didn't feel comfortable trusting to anybody else, that he doesn't mind, really, has grown to really enjoy it even. And while all of that is true, it doesn't negate the fact that Mikey shouldn't have had to go into the business because Gerard couldn't do it properly himself, that he forced Mikey into it because he couldn't stand to pick up the gun and aim its needles at anybody's flesh, couldn't give his own creations the life they deserved. And that's probably never going to stop twisting him up inside whenever he thinks about it sober.)

Then Mikey adds - and Gerard can say, categorically, that this is totally weird, "I meant to say - Frank's got an idea for a design he wants to get? A realistic heart with a knife stuck through it. He really likes your stuff."

After that, he clams up completely again and Gerard is left sitting there wondering what the hell it means that Mikey's just told him who one of the designs is for. It's always been part of their understanding that that just doesn't get mentioned, since Gerard hasn't been interested in having any more of a connection to the finished pieces than he has. And, okay, yeah, Gerard still only has a name to attach to a forearm rather than an actual person and he maybe brought it on himself by mentioning that he'd seen one of the designs himself. But that had never happened before. There hadn't been any precedent for the situation. He'd never thought he'd be so excited.

Mikey is totally giving off 'done now' vibes, though, so Gerard guesses they are.

The movie plays on in the background, the werewolves' howling and the blood spurting on screen in all their completely implausible glory. Mikey taps away at his laptop keyboard, looking for all the world like he hasn't completely changed the rules on Gerard without any sort of prior notification. And Gerard, Gerard can't concentrate on anything, not while Mikey's still there, and that's as weird as anything else about the whole situation. Weird enough that it throws him off his usual coping mechanism of going and getting himself a drink.

***

Gerard races for the freezer and the bottle of vodka there and starts sketching ideas for Frank's knifed heart pretty much immediately after Mikey leaves, mumbling something about getting pizza, which is probably actually code for having hot monkey sex with a person or persons Gerard doesn't want to know about. If it isn't, Gerard figures they just would have ordered a pepperoni pie for delivery.

The math on that one isn't difficult _at all_.

And that would be the alcohol-enhanced thought process that leads to Gerard digging the cordless out from between the couch cushions and putting in an order for an extra-large pie and getting sauce stains all over the first batch of sketches for Frank's broken, bleeding, mutilated heart tat. Which don't look anything at all like bloodstains. And which, thus, aren't at all cool and artistic.

They're just orangey-red and greasy and totally bring down the tone of the whole project and make Gerard sad.

Not that it matters in the end, since Mikey heartlessly gathers the pizza-stained drawings up and takes them away to be scanned and photoshopped when he stops by to make sure Gerard is still alive Wednesday evening. Which maybe has something to do with the fact that Gerard never turned his phone back on after the show Saturday and also left the cordless handset to lie where it fell amongst the sofa cushions instead of putting it back on its base on Sunday (Mikey makes sure that Gerard's phone is on and that the handset makes it back to the base before he leaves, raising an eyebrow and staring Gerard down until he digs it out from under a stray cushion and shuffles his way through the debris littering the floor to return it to its home. Mikey has an evil raised eyebrow, no lie).

Not that Mikey is any better about communication when he doesn't want to be. After he blows back out of Gerard's apartment, in possession of Gerard's sketches, Gerard doesn't hear a single word from him for the entire rest of the week and almost all of the weekend besides. By the time Saturday evening rolls around, Gerard is primed and ready to descend into a death spiral of panic and self-doubt, fueled entirely by the idea that Mikey's just trying to find the right moment to break the news that Frank didn't like a single thing about Gerard's designs, hated them so much, in fact, that he's not just not interested in getting that tattoo from Way Out There Tattoos, but has decided that he never wants to patronize the shop again. That Frank couldn't stop laughing for a full ten minutes after Mikey first showed him the drawings he thought they were so ridiculously not what he was looking for. That Frank's planning to make a journal post (and cross-post the hell out of it) or send an email to all of his friends (and all of their friends) or set up a webpage dedicated to telling the world just how much the designs suck.

(And, yes, Gerard is aware that he can be overly melodramatic.)

There's a little voice, buried way in the back of his head, that keeps patiently reminding him that Mikey has never told him anything about Frank that suggested he'd go so entirely overboard in his reaction to what have to be considered first draft concept sketches. That voice doesn't have a chance in hell against the larger, more panicky one asking Gerard just what the fuck he thinks he knows about Frank, anyway? And it's that panicky one that starts him drinking fit to stun and drawing like his life depends on it.

He passes out sometime before dawn (probably - it's not like the blackout curtains actually let much in the way of light penetrate into the apartment), clutching the empty vodka bottle and surrounded by a scree of sketches of increasingly more detailed and gory hearts skewered by wicked-looking knives.

He wakes up to the phone ringing and somebody trying to stab their way through his skull with a rusty spoon and his bladder delivering pointed manifestos concerning the necessity of it having access to a bathroom. The clock tells him it's after noon, which means it could be anybody, but with luck it'll Mikey. Which means that he can take care of answering the phone and relieving his bladder at the same time.

He levers himself up off the couch, speed-shuffles his way over to the table with the phone on it, grabs it up just as its ringer cuts out. And then doubles his pace on the way to the bathroom when it cuts back in a moment later. His bladder is really fucking making its opinions known and most of them include the word 'NOW' and he's pretty sure that it's Mikey doing the calling and that he'll keep thumbing the redial button until Gerard picks up. And the last thing Gerard needs this morning is for the phone to keep on fucking ringing. His head hurts plenty enough already.

He never bothers to close the bathroom door, so it's all just getting his dick out and aimed - and then thumbing the 'TALK' button and mumbling, "Wha?"

Mikey's voice floats down the phone at him, sympathetic but amused, "Big night?"

Gerard makes a disgruntled noise at him and concentrates on keeping his dick aimed in the right direction. It's stupid and ridiculous but true that he'll be coordinated enough to piss without concentrating on aiming after he's gotten done taking this piss. It's like a scientific paradox or something.

He's not paying a lot of attention to Mikey, but he doesn't really need to; his uncaffeinated brain is still capable of picking out the important words in anything Mikey might say. Well, mostly. He's pretty sure that, " . . . diner?" translates to something like "Brunch at the diner?".

Gerard mumbles his reasonably enthusiastic agreement, anyway, because coffee, particularly the diner coffee? Sounds amazing. Food not so much, yet, but he has hopes concerning waffles and bacon once the coffee works its magic.

And Mikey laughs at him and says something about 'in an hour' and hangs up. Gerard thumbs the phone off, shakes his dick dry and gets things settled back in his pants - and then squares his shoulders and sets about preparing to rejoin the land of the living.

If Mikey's about to soften the blow about the design with coffee and greasy food, Gerard should be ready. Well, as much as that's even fucking possible.

***

Gerard actually turns up at the diner about an hour after he gets off the phone with Mikey, carefully working his poor baby of a junker, Silver, into a space near the back of the lot where there aren't a whole lot of other cars parked. There's no sign of Mikey, yet, but Mikey's about as likely to get distracted when he's supposed to be leaving the house as Gerard is and it's a pretty nice day out, all things considered.

Gerard digs a mini notebook and a pen out of his pocket and sits down on the curb, thinking that maybe he can get some lyrics out of his fucking ridiculous damage. He gets so absorbed, though, that he doesn't even notice the guy until he starts talking on his phone. And after Gerard tunes into that he only gets the one half of it, of course, though that's pretty entertaining, even by itself, profane and good-humored and snappy, all, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here, already. Yeah, I drove a little fast - it's a fucking nice day! And the Misfits came on the radio! No, I'm not about to go out and buy a convertible. _I'm_ not worried about the size of my dick. Ha. Fuck you, man. Uh-huh. I'm not the one who's running late. Yeah, whatever. I'll see you when I see you. Bye."

Gerard's not paying particular attention to what the guy looks like, not really. Not until he puts his phone back into his pocket and starts turning to look more in Gerard's direction, maybe looking around the parking lot for his missing friend? Yeah, that leaves Gerard faced with a realization he could have stood to do without. Because the guy? Is the hot tattooed guy from the show. The one Mikey was maybe fucking flirting with. And Gerard is still not weighing in on whether or not the guy might or might be his type, because seriously? That way lies Elder Gods type madness.

At the moment, though, the thing Gerard thinks is most import to consider is that while he may not be looking at Gerard right that very second, who knows how long he might have been there or what he might have already seen? Gerard still tries to retroactively disappear - and is about as successful at that as he ever is.

Hot tattooed guy is apparently a little quicker on the uptake than Gerard, though, 'cos he makes a beeline for him as soon as he spots him, comes over and says, "Hey, I dig your stuff, man."

Gerard hadn't started off thinking anything in particular, just appreciating that hot tattooed guy is definitively even more hot up close and unfiltered by alcohol, which is maybe some sort of minor miracle. Gerard is certain of this because while he was walking over, he got a good chance to look at him, take in the broad outlines of him from head (his swoopy bangs and open smile) to toe (his beat-up jeans and chucks). As well as all the stuff in between, the faded black hoodie with the wolf-head on the front and the tattoos revealed by its pushed-up sleeves and the stretched-out neckline of the t-shirt underneath. He spares a moment to be amused at the missing leg on the scorpion on the guy's neck, but as soon as his eyes hit the guy's left forearm it's Game Over, nothing left to think about but that. Because one of the tattoos taking up that dermal real estate? Is Gerard's Lady of Sorrows. No question. Which means that this is Frank, telling Gerard that he likes his work. Gerard has no words. None. Whatsoever. And his stomach has plummeted to about the range of his Sambas.

Frank appears not to have noticed - or possibly he's just capable of steam-rolling over any silence, ever, because he just continues, breezily, "Yeah - y'know, Mikey got me into it - little dude has never steered me wrong, yet."

Frank calling anybody little would be funny under other circumstances, but not so much right now. Gerard's stomach has just decided to reverse trajectory and take up residence in his throat, with the possible option of taking flight entirely in the wings. Because, really, what is his life? What is it about Frank that makes Mikey think it's okay to just up and decide to tell him the one thing that Gerard really, really wanted to keep a secret.

Is the sex actually that fucking good?

Gerard doesn't even know how long that fucking mindfuck of a question distracts him from whatever Frank is saying, but the next thing he catches is, "Dude, the pit at the show the other weekend was killer. You really got the kids going."

And Frank maybe keeps speaking, but if he does Gerard doesn't hear any of those words, either. Suddenly his stomach is back where it belongs and all is relatively more right in the world. Frank's been talking about Gerard's music, not his tattoo designs. Mikey hasn't decided to up and betray Gerard's brotherly trust. Lusting after Frank might still be likely to lead him down the road to madness, but that doesn't seem likely to be the foundations-of-his-world crumbling variety, at least.

Gerard just starts babbling he's so relieved, says, a bit fucking unsteadily, "Yeah - yeah, I saw you out there. Or, well, your arm, really. Not that I knew it was your arm. I just saw the tattoos. They're, uh, eye-catching."

And Frank grins and says, "Your kid brother did the Lady of Sorrows for me - worked up this goddamn awesome design and laid it down real fucking sweet."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's Mikey's work, alright." And that actually feels weird to say. Because Gerard drew the Lady. And he's never given Mikey the credit for a piece with it sitting right in front of him. It feels a bit like lying, even though Mikey's the one who transferred the design from its original home on a piece of sketch paper to the living canvas of Frank's skin. Gerard can't just take it back, though. And he's not entirely sure that he wants to, not yet. But maybe. Maybe someday.

"He does good shit, man. All the stuff on the walls just felt so real, like it wasn't just there to fucking look badass. Like it was maybe trying to say something. Not gonna lie, I don't usually go in for stock art, but the first time I walked into the shop I walked out with these," and Frank twists around and pulls up his hoodie and t-shirt in back to reveal one of Gerard's earlier designs, a pair of crossed guns.

Gerard doesn't know what to say. At all. That's one of the designs that flew out of his pen and onto the page, one after the other after the other in those early days when he could hardly draw fast enough to keep up with the thoughts that wouldn't just stay in. That's a part of him in a way that a lot of the newer designs aren't. He's proud of the Lady of Sorrows, no question, and there's still something of Gerard in it, but isn't quite so much a pure distillation of his anger and fear and uncertainty and defiance the way the guns are.

"I just needed to feel indestructible, you know? Like nobody could take me down? I'm never going to be the kind of guy who carries an actual gun, but having these guys is good for reminding me that nobody can stop me unless I let them."

And yeah, okay, Frank's maybe a little bit cocky, but Gerard's really okay with that. He'd like to know what Frank means, to have that feeling of invulnerability in his own life. The closest he comes these days is up on stage, half out of his mind with vodka and his own fucking words.

He says, finally, "Yeah, I can get wanting that. I mean, I guess you saw what happened with Bert at the show?"

Frank nods and Gerard continues, "Well, he's got reason to be angry with me. But I've got reason to be angry with him, too. And a lot of the time I just wish our history would just stop fucking getting in my way, tripping me up. It's a bit epic, honestly. Tragic love story and all that."

Frank says, wryly, "Yeah, I'd heard."

And after that they just talk. Bert leads to one thing which leads to another. Mostly not tattoos, since Gerard's not ready to go there. Just . . . stuff. And they're sitting side-by-side on the curb trading Mikey stories when the man in question puts in an appearance, finally.

Gerard says, "Hey, Mikes."

And Frank adds to the chorus with, "MikeyWay! Took you long enough to get here."

Which is about when Gerard realizes that Mikey was totally the friend Frank was talking to on the phone, which means that Mikey also totally set this up.

Mikey says, "Hey, Gee. Hey, Frank," and Gerard's pretty sure that that counts as a MikeyWay smug look.

And if Mikes is looking smug then maybe things might not be about to fall apart entirely, after all. Not that Gerard had been too worried about that actually happening at this point.

He's met Frank, after all.  



End file.
